Word processing software has revolutionized the manner in which people generate documents and, in some cases, has created whole industries such as the desktop publishing industry. However, when documents are created by more than one author, or are very large and complex, current word processing applications often lack the functionality necessary to organize and manage such documents. In particular, in collaborative efforts involving more than one author, segments or "divisions" of a complex document are often written by different people, such divisions having different styles and formats. Further, it is increasingly desirable to include in a master document, divisions which may not only have been written by a separate author, but which are in a different word processing format, and may even be located external to the authors local area network. Although some word processing applications, such as Lotus 1-2-3, commercially available from Lotus Development Corp, Cambridge, Mass., a subsidiary of International Business Machines Corporation, have provided facilities such as Work Sheet Tabs, to divide and organize a spreadsheet document, it has not been possible to create nested divisions, i.e., a division within a division. Further, such applications do not provide the ability to link external documents to the current document or to scroll contiguously through an entire document, including the externally linked portions thereof. In addition, it is often desirable to have different authors work on different divisions of a document concurrently while the document is being created. Further, it is desirable to access exactly a specific page within a document using a scroll bar, without having to manipulate the scroll bar several times before reaching the desired location.
Accordingly, there is a need for an authoring tool which allows for the creation of documents having complex organizational structures. More particularly, there is a need for word processing software which enables the author to create nested divisions within the document. A need further exists for an authoring tool which enables users to include in a document, material external to the author's immediate authoring system. Still further, a need exists for a document authoring tool which enables the author to contiguously scroll through an entire document including, content within nested divisions and divisions containing externally linked material. Even further a need exists for an authoring tool which enables multiple authors to work concurrently on different divisions of the same document. Yet another need exists for an authoring tool which allows exact accessing of the particular page within a document by means of a scroll bar.